Leadership

Craig Antico

Founder, Director of Debt Operations

Craig Antico worked for 30-years as a financial industry leader in collections, debt buying, and outsourcing after completing his MBA at Pace University. His career includes employment and consulting assignments with IBM, Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems, and numerous collections agencies.

Craig Antico

Craig Antico worked for 30-years as a financial industry leader in collections, debt buying, and outsourcing after completing his MBA at Pace University. His career includes employment and consulting assignments with IBM, Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems, and numerous collections agencies.

In the 90s and 2000s Craig ran the East Coast operations of the distressed debt exchange (DDE) company, eDebt. In 2012, he advised and managed the back-office debt purchasing, data scrubbing, and the mailing of debt abolishing letters for The Rolling Jubilee Fund, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that works to liberate people from debt. Through his efforts and expertise, $50 million in medical debt, student loans and payday loans were abolished.

Jerry Ashton

Founder, Director of Education and Outreach

Jerry Ashton has more than 40-years’ experience in the credit and collections industry. In 1995, after almost 20 years in the industry, and dissatisfied with the way he saw debtors treated, he founded CFO Advisors, Inc., in New York City. At one point his specially trained teams, from all over the U.S., serviced more than a half-billion dollars annually in receivables.

Jerry Ashton

Jerry Ashton has more than 40-years’ experience in the credit and collections industry. In 1995, after almost 20 years in the industry, and dissatisfied with the way he saw debtors treated, he founded CFO Advisors, Inc., in New York City. At one point his specially trained teams, from all over the U.S., serviced more than a half-billion dollars annually in receivables.

His clients included Johnson & Johnson, Hearst, Gannett, RR Donnelley, Snelling and Snelling, and Biosense Webster. Jerry is also the co-author of “The Patient, The Doctor, and the Bill Collector: A Medical Debt Survival Guide” which reveals the hidden truths behind the crushing medical debt affecting more than 64 million Americans.

Mikel Burroughs

Director of Military Debt Acquisitions and Relief

Board of Directors

Craig Antico

Craig Antico worked for 30-years as a financial industry leader in collections, debt buying, and outsourcing after completing his MBA at Pace University. His career includes employment and consulting assignments with IBM, Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems, and numerous collections agencies.

In the 90s and 2000s Craig ran the East Coast operations of the distressed debt exchange (DDE) company, eDebt. In 2012, he advised and managed the back-office debt purchasing, data scrubbing, and the mailing of debt abolishing letters for The Rolling Jubilee Fund, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that works to liberate people from debt. Through his efforts and expertise, $50 million in medical debt, student loans and payday loans were abolished.

Jerry Ashton

Jerry Ashton has more than 40-years’ experience in the credit and collections industry. In 1995, after almost 20 years in the industry, and dissatisfied with the way he saw debtors treated, he founded CFO Advisors, Inc., in New York City. At one point his specially trained teams, from all over the U.S., serviced more than a half-billion dollars annually in receivables.

His clients included Johnson & Johnson, Hearst, Gannett, RR Donnelley, Snelling and Snelling, and Biosense Webster. Jerry is also the co-author of “The Patient, The Doctor, and the Bill Collector: A Medical Debt Survival Guide” which reveals the hidden truths behind the crushing medical debt affecting more than 64 million Americans.

Robert Goff

With more than 40 years of experience in the health care industry, Robert E. Goff is a recognized expert in care delivery, organization and financing. His career spans a wide range of leadership positions as a hospital administrator, managed care executive, consultant, regulator, and association executive. He’s held an academic posting as an adjunct professor in Managed Care and Healthcare Strategic Planning at the New School University, NY. He’s a frequent lecturer to physicians and community organizations. As an entrepreneur, Goff has been responsible for the development of numerous health care businesses, including one of the first for-profit HMOs in New York State, one of the earliest physician practice management companies, a chain of urgent care centers, the first network model Medicare and Medicaid managed care plans in a secondary market, plus provider-based health care business initiatives. Goff recently retired from service as Executive Director and CEO of University Physicians Network, LLC (UPN) in New York City.

William von Mueffling

William von Mueffling is president of Cantillon Capital Management, an investment firm with more than $13 billion under management. Mr. von Mueffling was previously a managing director at Lazard Asset Management, where he was responsible for hedge funds.

Prior to joining Lazard, he was with Deutsche Bank in Germany and France. He earned a BA from Columbia College and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Mr. von Mueffling is a member of Columbia Business School’s Board of Overseers, as well as chair of the advisory board for the Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing. He also sits on Columbia College’s Board of Visitors and founded whoisontheballot.org, a non-partisan civic engagement program of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).

A board member of RIP Medical Debt, Mr. von Mueffling has served on numerous non-profit boards and chaired the Buckley School Board of Trustees until 2016. Currently, he chairs the investment committee for the American Academy of Berlin and serves on the advisory committee for Europe and Central Asia and the investment committee for Human Rights Watch. Mr. von Mueffling received the honor of Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French government and served on President George W. Bush’s Working Group on Financial Markets. In 2017, he received the John Jay Award for professional achievement from Columbia College.

Michele Masucci

Michele Masucci serves as general and special counsel to private equity firms and other investors looking to make investments in health care. Michele helps companies address evolving concepts and capitalize on opportunities emerging from the accelerating convergence of health care and technology. She served as chair of the firm’s Health Care Group from 2010 to 2016.

Michele focuses her practice almost exclusively on representing for-profit health care entities in private equity and other corporate transactions. She currently represents health care focused middle-market private equity firms through their initial acquisitions and various add-ons of portfolio companies. As a former in-house counsel at a hospital, her uniquely holistic perspective helps her guide health care clients juggling day-to-day operational issues and new business ventures. With the Accountable Care movement in full effect, Michele advises clients from the initial analysis of their existing models through the formation and implementation of new operational models, such as value-based contracting, ACOs, bundled payments and medical homes.

Frequently Asked Questions

We have answered some common questions below. If we have not yet answered your question, just send a message and we’ll be in touch soon.

RIP Medical Debt locates, buys and forgives medical debt on behalf of individual donors, philanthropists and organizations who step up to provide financial relief for people burdened by unpaid and unpayable medical bills. Debt forgiveness is a collective message of care from and for the communities we serve.

We incorporated on July 25, 2014, as Medical Debt Resolution, Inc., a New York-based not-for-profit doing business as RIP Medical Debt.

RIP buys and forgives “portfolios” of medical debt from health care providers and from the secondary debt market, which allows us to forgive thousands of people’s debts at once. RIP is not yet able to handpick and forgive personal medical debt for individuals. We’re working on it.

When we purchase a portfolio of medical debt, we abolish debt for those who:
Earn less than 2x the federal poverty level (varies by state, family size).
Debts are 5 percent or more of annual income.
Facing insolvency — debts are greater than assets.

We buy the debt of those who: earn less than 2x the federal poverty level (varies by state, family size), have debts that are 5 percent or more of gross annual income, are facing insolvency — their debts are greater than their assets.

No. The debt is being forgiven as a gift to the recipient. Nothing is expected in return.

Thank-you notes are welcome, naturally, and we love hearing how debt forgiveness helps a person’s life. We’re also discovering that when relieved of burdensome debt, people tend to “pay it forward” by sending their own messages of hope and abundance.

For those whose medical debts are forgiven, the forgiveness is a gift from a detached and disinterested third party (RIP) as an act of generosity, so forgiveness of the debt does not count as income to the debtor. We will not file a Form 1099-C with the IRS.

More than $100 billion in unpaid medical debt every year has an adverse impact on debtor patients, physicians and hospitals.

Unpaid medical debt negatively affects the doctor-patient relationship, causing many patients to shun needed care and even file personal bankruptcy. Unpaid medical debt is detrimental to the health of the medical industry, too. Unpaid patient debt has led to the closure or sale of physician practices and community hospitals.

The vast majority of unpaid medical accounts end up on the desks of third-party collectors, who subject patients to a campaign of phone calls and letters demanding payment. Once a collection agency siphons what it can from a medical debt portfolio, remaining accounts often are sold to a second agency, when the letters and calls begin anew. More than 52 percent of Americans have a medical collection action on their credit reports.

RIP Medical Debt intends to drive a stake through the heart of this medical debt collection cycle. We want to put it to rest, forever.

The mission of RIP Medical Debt is abolishing $1 billion dollars in personal medical debt. We estimate that raising $14.4 million in donations will allow us to purchase and forgive $1 billion in medical debt.